Blood of Heroes
Developed in the late 20th Century at Project Rising Spirit as part of the Bloodshot procedure, the nanite–enhanced plasma grants its benefactors enhanced strength, hearing, sight, fighting skills, and healing ability. The nanites store the thoughts, experiences, and, perhaps, the souls of those in whose veins the blood flows, and, when injected into a Harbinger, they replicate his ability and pass it to whoever receives the plasma. =Angelo Mortalli= In 1992, Angelo Mortalli, a hitman for The Carboni Crime Family who agreed to turn state’s evidence against Don Benito Carboni in exchange for a new identity after Gino Canelli framed him for the murder of Johnny Scotto, became a test subject for the project when June Schnieder, the FBI agent assigned to supervise his testimony, sold him out. A subsidiary of Hideyoshi Iwatsu’s Iwatsu Corporation, Project Rising Spirit replaced the blood in a human subject with synthetic plasma that contained microscopic computers called nanites that gave the test subjects greater strength, speed, agility, a healing ability, and an understanding of all forms of known combat, to create a programmable killing machine. After the Project scientists erased Angelo’s memories and he underwent the Bloodshot procedure, a Geomancer called Geoff McHenry, who had learned about Angelo’s existence of during Unity from Erica Pierce’s computers from the future, helped him escape. While his memories were completely gone, Angelo retailed a fraction of his personality that drove him to seek vengeance on those that took his identity and to reclaim his lost past. Using his newly-acquired abilities, Angelo rechristened himself after the project that changed his life and became the hero called Bloodshot. Superhuman Powers Along with erasing his memories, Project Rising Spirit drained Angelo Mortalli’s circulatory system and replaced his blood with synthetic plasma containing nanites – microscopic computers – that transform their host into the ultimate a human can be. With full control of respiratory, glandular, cardiac, and other metabolic functions, the nanites make the widest use of oxygen, adrenaline, and even the brain’s natural pain-killing endorphins. Bloodshot has a rapid healing capacity. Simple lacerations may heal in minutes, bullet wounds or deep cuts may take a few hours, and a broken limb might mend within a day or two. Bloodshot controls the nanites the same way a person sends the mental command to move a leg or arm, relatively subconsciously, but the micro-computers have their own pre-existing programming that he must consciously override. Over time, Bloodshot has gained greater control, so that their original programming remains dormant. =Ax= In 2028, as robotics and computers became the only defense against Toyo Harada, the owner of the Harbinger Foundation, he fixated over the ability to control them, while the Harbinger renegade Ax was determined to possess the plasma that cursed through Angelo’s veins. As the battle for possession of the plasma kicked into high gear, Ax defeated Bloodshot in a battle on a lunar base after Bloodshot had successfully evacuated its occupants and drained the blood from his body after he delivered a fatal head shot that killed him. Aware that Toyo Harada wanted the blood as badly as he did and that he sent his troops to get it, Ax copied a set of his brain patterns into the nanites’ files while he was in hiding before they killed him in the hope that someone would eventually open them and bring him back to life. In time, the blood’s legend grew and it became known as the Blood of Heroes. =Grandmother= In 3217, Grandmother, the freewill caretaker of Japan, learned that the Anti-Grannies, an organization of citizens who felt oppressed by the lack of control over their lives and believed that Japan's fate belonged to its people, found the blood and planned to inject it into a psionic to grant him mental control over all electronic devices, including her. Worried, Grandmother sent Sho Sugino, the second Rai, to the Anti-Grannies’ hidden base in the Lost Land, a hub at the center of time outside the normal space-time continuum, to retrieve the blood and destroy her enemies. After Sho killed Uejo, the Anti-Grannies’ leader, and recovered the blood, Grandmother opened a portal back to Japan, and after she took possession of the plasma, she told Sho that she determined that the people of Japan would never accept him as her champion and decided to abandon him in the Lost Land. Grandmother, who chose the House of Nakadai to breed her future Rai, ordered the third Rai to place the Blood of Heroes in a vault outside the Skull Dome, where it would remain until she had time to study it. =Takao Konishi= During Unity, Erica Pierce forced Japan to crash on Earth and left its people devastated and without a country, while the last Rai, Tohru Nakadai, fell in battle against her and the Rai lineage died with him. On April 10th 4002, Rokland Tate, the Geomancer of 4002, took Takao Konishi, an Archie that the Earth guided him to, inside the Japan crash site to search for the vault where Grandmother hid the Blood of Heroes. As Rokland urged Takao to be strong, as, no matter how bad Japan’s situation seemed there were darker times ahead for the Earth, Takao doubted that he knew where the chamber was, but Rokland assured him that the walls told him where to go. A day later, when they reached the vault, Rokland told Takao to slice open his wrists to decrease the volume of his blood so that the pressure would not rupture his arteries after he injected himself with the blood. Though Takao initially hesitated, he trusted Rokland and bravely sliced his wrists. After Rokland placed the container that held the blood over Takao’s chest and injected him with it, within minutes, the blood healed his wrists and Takao heard it speak to him. When Takao asked Rokland what he had become, the Geomancer told him that he was the last Rai, the protector of the future. Category: Bloodshot Category: Rai Category: Items